Go-ing, Go-ing, Go-ne: AI software beats human champ for 3rd straight time

Google’s Go-playing software defeated a human champion for the third straight time Saturday to clinch the best-of-five series and establish its superiority in an ancient Chinese game long thought to be the realm of humans. South Korea’s Lee Sedol, one of the world’s best Go players, remained winless against AlphaGo, Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence machine, after another close match in Seoul. The highly anticipated showdown between human and machine crushed the pride of Go fans, many of them in Asia, who believed Go would be too complex for machines to master.

When you watch really great Go players play, it is like a thing of beauty. So I’m very excited that we’ve been able to instil that level of beauty inside a computer.

Google co-founder and Alphabet president Sergey Brin

“Go is a very beautiful game and I think it teaches a lot about life, much more so than a game like chess,” said Google co-founder and Alphabet president Sergey Brin after the match. Despite losing the series, Lee is scheduled to play twice more against AlphaGo, on Sunday and Tuesday. Some thought it would take at least another decade for computers to beat human Go champions. Many top Go professionals commented that AlphaGo displayed unorthodox, questionable moves that initially befuddled humans but made sense in hindsight.

AlphaGo